1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns temperature resistant synthetic fabrics and more particularly concerns a temperature resistant, coated open weave fabric and dryer belts made therefrom.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The requirements for dryer belts have become more and more demanding as the textile industry continues to evolve. The demand for faster machine throughputs, and more complete solvent recoveries to meet pollution requirements in the textile industry have created a demand for dryer belts with a high percentage of projected open area and which will tolerate the more severe conditions without a significant reduction in operating life.
Prior hereto, metal mesh belts have been employed as dryer belts in textile dryers. However, the metal belts exhibit poor flex fatigue resistance and track poorly, particularly when run at high speeds. Also, over a relatively short period of time, small wire strands break and bend leaving a sharp point which will catch and damage the textile being conveyed.
Synthetic dryer belts employed previously have included, for example, fiberglass fabrics coated with polytetrafluoroethylene. These synthetic fabrics generally enjoy short lives as dryer belts, having a relatively poor resistance to abrasion, relatively low strength and poor tracking ability at high speeds.
Open weave nylon Fourdrinier wires have been employed extensively in papermaking, particularly nylon fabrics coated with phenolic-aldehyde resins (see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,032,441). Although such fabrics are excellent in terms of their durability and long life they generally have low air permeability and therefore are of limited value where a high volume of air passage is desired (as is the case of dryer belts for the drying of textiles).
The leno weave is a known weave which has been previously employed to fabricate support fabrics such as skrim (U.S. Pat. No. 3,595,730) and insulating wrappings (U.S. Pat. No. 2,679,677).
We have found that a particular open weave, employing particular warp and weft yarns coated with particular types of resin compositions yield fabrics particularly valuable for dryer belts. The dryer belts fabricated from the fabric of the invention show temperature resistance, dimensional stability in spite of a very open weave, high air permeability, excellent tracking characteristics at high speeds and a high degree of abrasion resistance. Surprisingly, these advantageous properties are obtained in a fabric product which is substantially lighter and more flexible than fabrics previously employed to fabricate dryer belts. One would not ordinarily expect to obtain longer life and better durability in the lighter dryer belts of the invention. Furthermore, the light weight and better flexibility of dryer belts fabricated from fabrics of the invention provide for easy installation on existing textile dryers. The heavier prior art dryer belts are generally more difficult to install.